Exploring Art Appreciation Across Three Virtual Museum Configurations: Do Experience Patterns Differ by Formal Art Education?

This exploratory study examines how art appreciation varies across three virtual museum configurations, particularly the White Cube, Traditional Museum, and Contextualized Configurations, and whether participants’ experiential patterns differ according to their formal art education. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study integrates quantitative findings across six dimensions of aesthetic experiences with qualitative insights into the perception of composition, color, and detail. Examining the role of participants’ formal art education provides insights into how individuals with different educational backgrounds draw on perceptual, spatial, and interpretive cues. Based on these findings, the study identifies two complementary areas of design implications to support virtual art appreciation: configuration-level design considerations and participant-informed design opportunities, encompassing perpetual scaffolding, interpretive layering, analytical exploration, environmental context, and flexible flow. These implications suggest potential strategies for offering more inclusive virtual museum experiences that could accommodate different educational backgrounds and engagement preferences.